On your Googlebook, you can easily control your camera and microphone or change audiovisual effects from your screen's status bar. You can quickly access your privacy settings and effects whenever you need them, like when you:
- Make a video call
- Attend an online meeting
- Take photos, videos, or audio recordings
Open media controls
- Open an app that uses your camera or microphone.
- For example, you can open Google Meet.
- At the top right of your screen, select Active camera
or Microphone
.
- This opens the media controls panel where you can change your settings.
- The indicators appear only when an app is using your microphone or camera.
Check which apps are using your camera or microphone
To find which apps use your camera or microphone, you can use the media controls panel.
- To open the panel, in the status bar, select one or more active indicators.
- In the activity section, find the apps that use your camera, microphone, or both.
- Close an app: From the list, select the app
Close app.
- You can also close an active app directly.
- To manage an app’s system-level camera and microphone permissions, open the system settings for that app.
- Close an app: From the list, select the app
Close app.
Manage camera & microphone effects
From the media controls panel, you can adjust various effects for your camera and microphone.
Manage camera effects
If the active app doesn’t use your camera, these options won’t be visible in the panel.
Adjust background blur in portrait mode- In the panel, select Blur.
- Select Light blur or Heavy blur.
- In the panel, select Studio look.
- You can turn these options on or off:
- Improve lighting: If necessary, it simulates the effect of a ring light and adds light to the user’s face.
- Portrait touch-up: To reduce under-eye darkness and improve skin tone, it applies a moderate and realistic filter.
To automatically center or zoom the camera to your face, in the panel, select Camera framing.
Manage microphone effects
If the active app doesn’t use your microphone, these options won’t be visible in the panel.
Improve microphone quality- In the panel, select Studio mic.
- To customize the effect, turn these options on or off:
- Noise cancellation (voice isolation): This filters sounds that aren’t speech. When you use this option, it might remove sounds like music, laughter, or applause.
- Studio-quality mic: It makes your laptop’s microphone sound like a rich, intimate professional microphone with both deep low-frequency and crisp high-frequency details.
To use live captions, in the panel, turn Live captions on or off.
Fix issues with your video controls
Indicator or panel doesn’t show up- Indicators only show when active: The indicator and panel only show when an app uses your camera or microphone. If you mute your camera or microphone in the app, the indicator doesn’t show up.
- Camera and microphone might be disabled at the system level: Through Quick Settings, if you turn off your camera or microphone access at the system level, the panel doesn’t show up. To display the panel, enable system-level access again.
If your camera or microphone doesn’t seem to work, double-check if you turned on any privacy covers or switches.
For example, on the camera itself or with the keyboard. You can also check if you turned off system-level access through Quick Settings or app-level access in app settings.
- The first time you use these effects, the system might take some time to load the software. Wait a few minutes and try to toggle the effects on and off again or restart the app.
- Some effects are designed to only affect the image or sound when needed.
- For example, in a relatively dark environment, Improve lighting helps correct situations where your face is sharply lit from the side. The effect is less noticeable when your lighting is already optimal.
- Some apps might be incompatible with effects. Contact the app developer for details.